Whoever said...

This is just what happens...

...when a do-gooder meets a jobsworth.

I'm not sure who's side I'm on but it would seem that if you have a Deed Poll with a new name on it the IPS can't do much about it. It probably caught the G7 on a bad day and he went a bit beyond his brief.

Look out for the passport being issued and the whole thing going quietly away.

Is he being serious?

Gordon Brown has said Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's use of Commons expenses for two adult films watched by her husband should be a "personal matter"

Gordie old mate, it was a personal matter right up to the point we had to pay for it.

And up to the point that your Home Secretary with the support of your government decided that the British public's 'personal matters' are actually a matter for government to poke their noses into.

This wouldn't have caused half the splash it has if there wasn't for the moralistic posing by the Government to stir up the Mail readers. Paying back the tenner is a small hit on the wallet and in more permissive times the cash would come out of her wages and she'd walk away embarrassed but politically intact. Because the government has set itself up as moral arbiters they better make sure they are perfect or get a proper job.

I wonder whether John's duties as part of 'running the office' is filling in the expenses claims (and hiding the receipts)?

Well the Westwood DS5000...

...does 0-60 in 4 seconds. Runs of waste heat from power stations. Stored in a previously unknown material pyluronium bisulphide. It can recharge from a 3C temperature increase over ambient in 10 seconds and gives a 3000 mile endurance. The stored heat is used to drive the memory metal motors. All losses from friction are used to recharge the heatsore. It's coated in an extract of treefrog slime that means it has approaching 0 drag.

And it is so bright red that if you stare at it for more than five minutes all the red receptors in your retina will burn themselves out.

Public sector project gone bad - Not news

@Simon Brown

I think you may have missed the point. The premium content we are talking about is put up to promote music. Not by pirates but by the music business because they saw the opportunity for a bit of free advertising.

Blocking it just removes a way of getting some free exposure. The PRS are doing you no favours in this case and as a customer of theirs you should be on their backs for an explanation why they might be trying to collect on something that has already been given away free by the owners.

Or look at it like this: I make furtwanglers that I put in a shop window. People buy my furtwanglers and I make some cash. Then some gangsters turn up and say I've sent them to tax the shop because there's furtwanglers in the window. Based on the turnover of their shop. They also mug any passer by who catch an accidental glimpse of my furtwanglers. With a promise that some of the money will go back to me, the maker. So the shop says bugger that we are putting the furtwanglers in the back room.

Nobody wins. Me and the people who don't know how pretty/useful/flexible/green my furtwanglers are the big losers. All the gangsters have done is broken a model that me and the shop were reasonably happy with.

The model is broken...but that's not a bad thing. It means its time to find a new on. I remember the Pretenders on one of their inner sleeves (in the days of proper records) rewording the "Home Taping is Destroying Music" tag to "Home Taping is Destroying the Music Business."

Good move by YouTube

They have managed to fsck over the people they are supposed to be working for. The music business and poor artists that we steal from by not paying them their dues.

Isn't the premium music stuff put up there to promote artists. Sort of like advertising but free.

YouTube should push back to the promotors and artists to bear the PRS costs out of the bit of advertising budget they have saved. So the PRS could give the promotors and artists what they are due. See what I've done there?

I hope YouTube have the balls not to back down and just highlight that the heavy handed PRS bully-boys are good for no one except themselves.

Are there other formats?

My job title...

But at heart I'm just a techy coder that has been doing it for 20+ years and I need a proper title to make me feel important.

I help out where I can which means:

estimating

coming up with the initial technical solution

being the customer facing techy

matching busines requirements to technical requirements

getting that over to the boys in the engine room

picking up development sticking points and finding ways to keep development moving

negotiating technical workarounds with the customer

CR impact analysis and estimating

code reviews

translating progress reports to customer talk for the project manager

picking up the crap bits of coding that no one else wants to do and either doing them or

making doing them a bit less painful

provide a sympathetic ear to everyone who wants to have a bit of a moan about the project on

all technical aspects

communicate progress to the project manager

deal with the technical people at the suppliers

get the beers in on a Friday lunchtime at the 'progress meeting'

So I guess the 'chief builder' moniker fits. To continue the metaphore I've been there done that and taken the pain. Whether it's a tricky bit of bricklaying or a putting in a new window frame I'm expected to know (or to be able to find out) how to do it.

I do work with architects who are 'not technical' and I wonder how they survive. They usually end up as another layer of project management. Cheif builders who have never laid a brick...